The invention relates to videos and financial applications such as tax preparation applications for preparing electronic tax returns. Financial applications such as personal finance applications, accounting applications and tax preparation applications have become very popular and allow people to manage personal and/or business finances. For example, users of tax preparation applications such as a taxpayer or a tax professional can prepare and electronically file a tax return using a computer. Certain tax preparation applications present a list of tax-related questions and data entry fields to the user as a series of interview screens or finable forms in response to which the appropriate data or answers is entered if they are known. Interview screens and questions may involve non-private information such as a person's occupation and private or sensitive information such as a name (or portion thereof), an address, a social security number, and a date of birth of the person or someone in the person's family. Other interview screens and questions may relate to private or sensitive financial information such as wages, retirement plan contributions, and federal taxes that were paid or withheld as provided in Form-W2. A completed electronic tax return is formatted as necessary and electronically filed with a tax authority such as the Internal Revenue Service, a state tax authority or other tax collecting entity.
While finance applications such as tax preparation applications have greatly simplified finance management and preparation of tax returns, such applications can be improved. For example, a person who uses a tax preparation application may have a question or comment regarding a particular finance or tax issue or how to complete an interview screen or form that is presented to the user. One option is for the person to submit an e-mail or typed message to an on-line community or group or a technical support person. A member of the on-line community or technical support person may respond to the message with an e-mail or typed response addressing the question or comment.
One example of such interaction involves TurboTax®. TurboTax® is a registered trademark of Intuit, Inc. During preparation of the electronic tax return, a user of TurboTax® may present a question to members of Live Community, which is an on-line forum or community that allows TurboTax® users to submit questions and answers to other users, share TurboTax® information with other users, and review questions and answers submitted by other TurboTax® users. For example, as shown FIG. 1A, after a user launches and signs into Live Community, the user is presented with a screen, window or interface 100 that allows the user to type a question or comment into a data entry field 102. After completing the question or comment, the user presses “Ask The Community” 104 to submit the text to Live Community. Other members of Live Community can review the question or comment and reply thereto with their own typed or text responses.
The question or comment may also be included in a topic list for other users to review. For example, FIG. 1B illustrates a screen or interface 110 of Live Community that includes a window or section 112 for a question or comment and a window or section 114 for an answer or response thereto. The screen 110 also includes a list 116 of topics of questions, comments and answers that can be searched or reviewed by members or users of Live Community.
Typed or e-mail communications may be suitable in certain situations, but there are times when a comment, question or answer is best communicated visually to other members of Live Community or other on-line forums such as YouTube®. YouTube® is a registered trademark of Google, Inc. For this purpose, a person can record a video of the interview screen that is the subject of the question or answer and post the video to the on-line video community. Other members of that video community can view posted video and respond thereto with their own text or video reply.
While video may provide for more effective audio and/or video communication, use of video, particularly in the context of financial applications such as tax preparation applications, presents a number of issues. For example, the video may include an interview screen or a portion of a tax return and that includes private or sensitive information when such information should not be or is ordinarily not disclosed to other people. For example, the video may include one or more of a name, an address, a phone number and a social security number of the person preparing the electronic tax return or someone in his or her family. Consequently, users of tax preparation applications and other financial applications that involve interview screens including private or sensitive information are understandably apprehensive about posting videos including their private or sensitive information to on-line video communities. Thus, video may not be used for this purpose in order to protect the user's privacy and guard against identity theft. Otherwise, someone posting a video with private or sensitive information takes the risk that another person who views the video and the private information therein will not improperly utilize or steal the private information. These restrictions and significant shortcomings and risks, therefore, limit the use of video to communicate comments, questions and answers involving private or sensitive information, thereby reducing the content and effectiveness of using video in the context of financial applications.